ABOUT

  Tony, our driver and tour guide, was absolutely wonderful. Not only is he a kind high-character person, he is very knowledgeable about Uganda and really took the time to answer... read more all of our questions. Tony took the time to go the extra mile to ensure our entire trip was special, and to show us his culture and beautiful country. Every minute, from when arrived early to pick us up to when he helped us with our luggage at the airport at the end of our trip, we felt completely taken care of by Tony. Friendly Gorilla Safaris was wonderful, from Anthony promptly responding to all of our emails and questions, to Tony making our trip great. Definitely recommend them!

The Gorilla hike was absolutely amazing and a once in a lifetime experience, I could not recommend it enough! You have to do this tour and you have to ask for Tony to make it even more wonderful.

A couple tips:
- Ensure that the hotel is close to where your permitted hike is located. I did not know that there are 5 locations where you can hike to see the Gorillas, depending on where your permit is for. Double check that the hotel you stay at is convenient to your permit hike site. Our hotel was the Rushaga Gorilla Havens Lodge, which was absolutely Wonderful and you can check out my review of them, and they are close to one of the hiking sites but it turned out that our permit was for another location so we had a 2 hour drive in the morning to get to our permit hiking site. It made for an especially early morning and a closer hotel to our hike would have been nice. Though the Rushaga really was wonderful.
- If there is a way to choose where you hike and what group of gorillas to see then you should 100% ask for the Nyakagezi group. That is the group we visited, and it was Amazing. The hike was only about 1.5 hour to see the family of gorillas which had 3 silverbacks and 2 babies. The rangers we were with were all lovely. They were so helpful to ensure we got amazing views and photos of the gorillas, and they answered all of our questions. We felt completely safe with them and had a wonderful time.

Once in a lifetime trip with our awesome tour guide Tony, definitely recommend it!!

  We initially wanted to visit Uganda and Kenya but due to an emergency change in our travel plan, we decided to go to Uganda only. The experiences we had were... read more more than we expected. I and my girlfriend really enjoyed the 3 days tour with Friendly Safaris. Our guide Ronald was very skilled and made sure we were totally satisfied.

The Uganda maize is something you MUST test when you visit Uganda.

We tracked gorillas from Rushaga which I find to be the best and most recommended region you should choose from.

thanks, friendly.

  My friend and I have overall been disappointed by this tour company.

The main issue has been the guide /driver, a very kind man who unfortunately didn't possess... read more the necessaty dynamism and self confidence to be a guide, and who was rather extremely soft spoken and mannered. We had a hard time communicating with him and having our questions answered throughout the whole holiday.

It wouldn't have been a major issue in itself hadn't his gross time mismanagement made us miss our evening flight on the last day. We followed his advice on departure time (even waited for him in the morning!) and clearly mentioned multiple times the latest we had to be at the airport. We ended up arriving 20 mins before our flight. He didn't take any possible traffic in consideration and even wanted us to stop at the Equator when we had already been delayed by lunch.

I have of course tried to have the new tickets (300$) reimboursed by the company. We managed to reach the manager Anthony, whose Whatsapp answers had been a bit patchy throughout the week already, after 1h30 of the phone ringing out.
Despite admitting it was their fault and knowing we had to take the following flight as my friend would have otherwise missed her international connection, he came up with various excuses until it was too late and we didn't have any another choice than to pay ourselves. Also, despite initially saying he wanted to reach a compromise and somehow help, he has since stopped answering my messages (as expected).

The manager had also booked some - if not all - the accomodation at the last minute. I had asked them one month and a half in advance to book a specific place - way below the budget the package allowed, by the way - where a friend stayed, and they told us the night before our arrival in Uganda that the place was fully booked for the first night. Luckily my friend, knowing we were supposed to come, had kept a room for us, but hadn't this happened we would have missed our stay there even after specifically asking for it well in advance (and, I repeat, this place was a homestay way cheaper than the category we were supposed to have).

Last but not least, the car (whose doors didn't hold open and whose icebox didn't work) broke for two days in a row, making us us miss a whole game drive one afternoon and part of it the following day.

I add that I live in Africa and both my friend and I have already quite extensively travelled the continent. This was the first time we had such issues with a tour operator.

  What a trip of a lifetime this was! We’ve been on the 9 Day Uganda Adventure tour and I cannot praise it enough! We had the best of accommodations, the... read more food was delicious everywhere we went and every day was a different adventure in itself. We got to see the chimpanzees and gorillas from up close in their natural habitat, of course and been on amazing safaris that made us get a true taste of Africa and Uganda in particular. Many thanks to Anthony for the great organization of the tour and for his availability and swiftness in replying to my inquiries! Not the least, special shout out to Chris (one of the best guides I’ve met so far) – excellent driver, super accommodating with our requests, knowledgeable and responsible at all times. I highly recommend this tour and Chris most of all!

  I and my girlfriend decided to go to Uganda foe a honeymoon and the choice to use Friendly Gorillas was the best.

Ronald our safari guide was very friendly,... read more knowledgable and above all flexible. he took us through out our stay in Uganda and made our Gorilla encounter pretty amazing.

We enjoyed the Kampala Rolex at one of the best restaurants in Uganda - Cafe Javas. You really wanna try these guys out and i promise you will never regret.

  Our guide/driver Tony was great and made our trip wonderful. He took the time to ear our meals with us to go over the trip plans and answer any questions... read more we had.

The gorilla hike was amazing and definitely recommend it, the rangers were really helpful and great. Once in a lifetime trip and recommend doing it with Tony and Friendly Gorilla Safaris, they made our trip memorable.